Enhanced Standard and Data for Aus TV Ratings

Australian TV ratings company OzTAM has awarded its new Gold Standard accreditation to six suppliers of TV audience measurement software packages. The organisation is also set to provide data users with details of viewers' education background, to help them better analyse TV ratings.

The Gold Standard accreditation is designed to enable consistent calculation of TV ratings by different suppliers. OzTAM has enhanced the standard in recent months, requiring all suppliers to undergo additional testing.

The new standard was developed with the assistance of RSMB Television Research in the UK and Dr Cam Rungie, a statistical consultant at the University of Adelaide.

AGB Nielsen Media Research, Broadcast MAP, Day 8 Technology, Landsberry & James, Starcom MediaVest Group and TNS have all been successfully reaccredited.

Commenting on the reaccreditation, OzTAM CEO, Kate Inglis-Clark said, 'It was great to see the industry working together to achieve an outcome that will benefit the industry as a whole'.

The Highest Education Qualification element of OzTAM's TV viewing data is being introduced in January to help media companies conduct socio-economic analysis of the data.

OzTAM has constructed six education categories that will form part of its standard demographic list. The information will be available in both the Metropolitan TV Elemental Database and National Subscription TV Elemental Database, via software packages that comply with the Gold Standard.

Inglis-Clark says the education element is the next stage in OzTAM's broader socio-economic project, building on last year's release of a household lifecycle variable and revised occupation category names.

OzTAM reports minute-by-minute data for all channels in Australia's five mainland state capital cities and nationally for homes that receive subscription TV. OzTAM's metropolitan panel comprises 3,035 homes and the national subscription television panel comprises 1,100 subscription television homes. The company is online at www.oztam.com.au.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.